Death and Lightning: A Guardian's Rise
by Kutasan
Summary: When he dropped the ring in the Forbidden Forest, it didn't land on the ground. It landed in the pocket of his robes. During that final duel, this single fact gave rise to an event that ended Wizarding Britain, and the life that Harry Potter wanted to lead. Rated M for... Things.


Kuta here with a new story, and I happen to think it's gonna be pretty good. If I ever had to choose between finishing only one of my multi-chapter stories, this and CoTaI would be the two top contenders. This is a Harry Potter/Katekyo Hitman Reborn crossover wherein Harry is granted absolute immortality by being the Master of Death... but nothing else really, aside from ridiculously huge magical reserves. He is literally incapable of dieing. You'll find out when you read.

I don't want to give anything else away before you read so that'll be that now. I will however point out that Harry is only going to get three powers he didn't display in the books or couldn't have in the manga given his position. So no massively OP magical skills, or anything like that. Just unkillableness, sixth year magic and any physical skills he could have realistically picked up in the intervening time, and those three new things, two of which shall be revealed in this chapter. Well, realistically from the perspective of KHR, which gives him a bit of wiggle room in just how blatantly skilled he could be. Somewhere between 'Ultimate BAMF' and 'Fairly highly skilled for his age.'

I'm going with stronger than Squalo by a fair margin, but far less powerful than Reborn, though he's immortal so it doesn't matter.

Anyway, enough babbling, Kuta out!

Disclaimer: Don't own any of the intellectual material found herein. That's all the property of the respective copyright holders. And since there isn't even a copyright for the idea I came up with, I can't even claim that as my property.

* * *

As he threw the spell that he was sure would end this pointless war over trivial things, the boy saw in his enemies eyes the same self-assurance that he himself felt. His enemy was just as sure that he would come out the victor of this particular scuffle, more the fool he. But when the spells collided, something unexpected-from both sides-happened. There was a pulse of magical energy from the enemies wand. One answered in double by the cloak the boy was standing on with one foot and the ring within the pocket of the robes the boy wore.

These pulses, that traversed the length and breadth of the valley within which the castle they did battle in was situated, returned in but a moment causing the enemy and all within that valley- near to half their kinds population within their country- except the boy upon whom the converging pulses centered to shudder before the magic exploded in a supernova of magical energy that demolished the castle, vaporized it's occupants (as well as the entirety of the inhabitants of the valley, human or no), and collapsed in on itself to leave behind a boy in a crater that was surrounded by the ruins of an ancient castle.

The boy screamed, and didn't stop until well after the people who came to find out what had happened had carted him off to a psychiatric hospital. From which he disappeared after twelve hours. They only got a name out of him. Harry Potter.

* * *

Nine Years Later

A man, who looked like a young military otaku- albeit one who had eyes that were much more mature then they should have been- to most adults not involved in the underground world of mafia dealings, appeared suddenly on a street in the middle of a small town in Japan known as Namimori. This man was Harry Potter, or Potter Harry as he was known in Japan due to their naming conventions. He had changed- physically, personally and emotionally- from the boy he had been before he had so stupidly- though accidentally- destroyed everything he'd ever held dear.

He was in much better shape now, though not taller as he'd rather like, still being around five foot and eleven inches tall- with muscles that wouldn't look out of place on a champion middle-weight boxer. This made him look rather more stocky than he had before and with the clothes he had on, he doubted anyone would recognize him as 'The-Boy-Who-Lived.' And did he ever hate that appellation now.

He wore a set of loose, comfortable, night-colored camouflage cargo pants with a number of pockets, a long-sleeved black thermal shirt over a light Kevlar vest, a pair of lightweight combat boots, a black leather- the kind of leather was up for debate, though it seemed to be some sort of snake or other large scaly reptile- hooded duster coated on the inside by some sort of black fur and lined- only on the inside- by numerous pockets that was nearly long enough to trail along the ground, and a ring bearing a curious insignia that was cracked down the middle on his right hand. He no longer wore glasses.

Looking at him, one would think he would be sweating- given the heat wave currently rolling through the area- but he seemed to be comfortable nonetheless. He also appeared to be unarmed, though given the many-pocketed nature of his coat that would be the wrong assumption to make. Hidden within that coat were no less than three hundred different throwing knives, two semi-automatic handguns and a two handed sabre of vaguely Chinese origin.

Known as a Miao Dao- which was a long faintly curved sword- it was bladed on only one side and quite noticeably wider of blade and tang than was usually seen in it's type, had a canted hilt that curved in the opposite direction from the blade, a basket like and rather over-sized hand guard- to prevent blood or rain from getting the hilt slick- and with a half circle extending from the pummel. A stick of elder was strapped to his forearm with a device to jettison it into his hand if needed.

None of which was even remotely detectable unless you dug through the pockets.

The knives were disposable, he could acquire more without even having to pay or even exert himself at all and the pistols only worth to him was that they were a touch faster if he needed a bit more speed _and_ range. The sword was actually quite expensive to have made, from one of the only dwarven clans left in the world and from some moderately pricey materials and enchanted for light weight, durability and an increased ability to keep it's edge. The wand was priceless.

Harry briefly considered pulling up the hood of his coat- between the layers of which he had stored his invisibility cloak- and becoming unseen, but discarded the idea because he had somewhere he needed to be and was really only passing through on a one of the quicker jobs he'd accepted before he was going to go out on a mini vacation. Which where hardly the needed set of circumstances that necessitated invisibility.

And it was an easy job too, as well as short. Go to the town, find the Arcobaleno, deliver the message for the Vongola's ninth- or Kyuudaime as the Japanese termed it- boss, leave to pick up the payment and done.

As he cast out with his senses to get a lock on the hitman's energy signature- one he knew peripherally from a couple of prior jobs- Harry thought of the past few years with a sort of bittersweet fondness and regret. The first few weeks of his life after he got out of the psychiatric hospital were spent trying to kill himself in as many ways possible, only to find that wounds healed in seconds and fire didn't _burn_ and asphyxiation was not all that bad- for him, any way, what with his lack of an actual _need_ to breath- and electricity only made him feel more energized for a few minutes and... Well, the list went on.

Even finding dark wizards and witches and goading them into using the killing curse on him didn't work. The green light would just splash against him harmlessly and he didn't even _feel_ it.

The next two years after that he'd spent in Knockturn Alley getting piss drunk as much and as often as he was able and hoping he'd some how keel over of age at the ripe old age of twenty. And then he'd remembered that he had the Hallows still, including the ring. And he'd used it. And had been laid into by just about everyone he'd ever cared for, including bloody Hedwig, for spending so long moping.

He'd been angry at them, for a time, and he'd let that motivate him. He'd gone on a year long crusade against all things inherently dark- vampires, boggarts, lethifolds, dark wizards of all sorts, rogue dragons- he'd skinned part of a particularly rabid Hebridean Black for his coat's leather fore-layer- a nundu once- and only once, because even though it couldn't really do any appreciable damage to him (or kill him via disease), he'd still have rather not _had_ to have fought the damn thing- which he'd promptly skinned for future use in his coat, boots (the inner lining) and pants (on the inside), even dementors for what little success he'd had- before he'd decided that he was utterly sick of the wizarding side of life. He'd packed up his belongings that would work in the mundane world, which really just meant he'd grabbed his clothes aside from his robes and some muggle cash from the odd jobs he'd been doing at the time, and skipped out on the wizarding side of things.

He'd heard rumors soon after- of powerful people doing unlawful things, heeding no counsel but their own and killing their rivals for power, be it political or militant. Of organized crime on a moral scale with Voldemort's or beyond and on a international level. His blood had boiled and he'd sworn to hunt them all down and put them to justice, as a private contractor for the government. And he'd had his brief span of faint naivete demolished by the underground mafia world.

He'd discovered on his third mission in- attempting take out an Italian Famiglia (mafia Family) called the Bovino at the behest of a powerful figure in the Italian government- that even in the mundane world politicians and governments were filthy, corrupt, money-grubbing elitists who didn't like their carefully contrived false peace shaken up at all.

He'd been told by his employer that the Bovino were the worst sort of mafioso, the kind who slaughtered the innocent and stole government weapons shipments and the supplied their country's enemies with them- so as to extend the conflicts and give themselves more wiggle room when it came to other illegal actions- and a whole host of other horrid things.

Once he'd gotten through the host of body guards on the grounds and in the halls of the mansion he'd been told they lived in he'd found a pair of old men with a handgun each and their wives holed up in a formal study. He'd spared the women.

He'd later found out the people in that last room were the mans political rivals and legitimate politicians who were only peripherally related to the Bovino- who he'd, even later on then this, found out were actually more decent then most of the wizards he knew, contractual assassinations and light weapons smuggling _into_ the country aside- at all, but who had been costing his employer a fortune in re-election ads to discredit them. His employer had been found in his office bathroom the next day a gibbering mess of paranoia and irrational fears of sticks and the color green.

Harry had learned during those weeks working for the governments, though, he'd learned a lot. Learned that though he was immortal, that didn't necessarily mean he was unbeatable. He'd come up against a number of different men and women in that time, all of them fairly skilled mafioso's, who he had not been able to beat until he'd worn them down by getting back up after they'd beaten him to a pulp. It had taken time. A lot of time. It was wasteful, inefficient... He'd thought he'd been strong, but those fights- though he'd 'won' them- had left the bitter taste of utter and humiliating defeat in his mouth.

Had he been mortal, would he have been able to come back from that broken knee with such ease? Or the compound fracture in his tibia? How about the goddamn knife to the eye socket?

He'd stopped his freelance, one man mafia war then and had settled in China to study some of their martial arts, armed and not. The unarmed stuff felt too rigid for him though and he'd left with only a few months of sword training under his belt for London to see if maybe boxing, the sport his own people had invented, ran more to his tastes. It didn't, being entirely focused on upper-body strength, and he'd learned not so very long ago that over-specialization made for exploitable weaknesses.

He'd then sat down for a little research into the matter and found that he didn't particularly like the basic premise any of the main stream martial arts out there, aside from Muay Thai. He put that one aside for later and did a bit of boning up about a style that he'd read of during his search that seemed promising. Jeet Kune Do, the way of the intercepting fist. A fairly recent martial art- by the standards of elitist, old, Chinese masters who spouted tales of three thousand years of tradition- created by a Chinese born man who'd become a movie sensation back in the seventies known as Bruce Lee. Harry had heard of the man before, and had even seen a few of his movies. He hadn't know the man had been a legitimate martial arts expert though. He'd then looked up where the mans students were, to try and learn the martial art that told one to 'be shapeless and move like water, fluidly and without hesitation.' And was met with one Dan Inosanto.

He soon learned that it wasn't a style so much a combat system with it's own set philosophical insights. He then set about learning how to apply this combat system to his life, and found that he was... Almost unnaturally adept at it. After already learning some of what had been the essential base of what had been the base of Lee's own experience and having found the rigidity of almost every single style he'd heard of stifling, the freedom of learning and harshness of training inherent in Jeet Kune Do was liberating.

He was able to quickly adapt new concepts into his combat philosophy, when they were useful to him, and easily discard those that he found more cumbersome than he was willing to use. Learning new styles took months rather than years and he was able to incorporate those techniques he actually found feasible into his repertoire nearly seamlessly. After spending more than two years training in unarmed combat Harry went about learning to wield the sword he'd found he liked most in his brief sword training in China, the Miao Dao.

He learned as many styles of armed, sword based combat as he could in the next year and seven months, from Japanese Kendo and a few Chinese Wudang Sword styles, to Italian fencing and Korean To absorbing or discarding techniques or principles as needed. Each with a one handed sabre, in preparation for the Miao Dao he had had the dwaven clan in eastern Austria make for him from the willingly given shells of an Occamy's clutch of silver eggs, which the dwarves knew how to forge into an alloy as hard-edged as diamond and as strong and heat resistant as a titanium-tungsten alloy. Which they had forged runes into that insured lightness, durability and sharpness as mentioned before.

Sword in hand, Harry had spent the next month on a mountain near the Ridgeback preserve that Norberta had been sent to acclimating himself to his blade and learning to throw the balanced throwing knives he would transfigure for himself.

In the next few years, he built himself a reputation as a man who would do anything that didn't compromise his moral code, for the right price, and who would just as quickly take out those who intentionally mislead him to try and make him do things he would disagree with as he would those he was hired to take out. When he next used the Ressurection Stone, those few who showed up had trouble looking him in the eye... Except Sirius, Hermione and Dumbledore. He had become a freelance mercenary and assassin who worked both sides.

And now he was standing in the middle of a small Japanese town reminiscing like a doddering old grandfather when he knew perfectly well he had a job to do and one of those disconcerting Arcobaleno to contact. Them and their damnable Dying Will Flames. Harry knew of them, and even how to use them to a limited extent himself, but he felt they were an annoyance to deal with from others. Hopefully he wouldn't have to deal with them this time.

He pinned down Reborn's position and leapt to the rooftops to cut down on time. Magic was great when you had massive enough reserves to bolster your physical capabilities with the stuff.

* * *

Reborn gave a slight start when he felt the massive energy signature, which was so wildly different from Dying Will Flames that it always gave him a slight start whenever he felt it, arrive so suddenly in Namimori. It was just... There, like teleportation. And massive was right. If the power were Dying Will Flames and Potter knew some techniques with his Dying Will Flames, he could likely over power anyone short of Reborn himself. And even then it would be close.

But this power... It was more ethereal, more insubstantial than the power inherent in a person when they were at the brink of death. To Reborn it felt more like the abyss that sparked the determination that gave the Flames strength, and sometimes that worried him, when he bothered to give it thought. Because while those Flames could stall the abyss... Death... For a time, it was still inexorable and all-encompassing.

For a man to feel so similar, to give of a feeling so reminiscent just from his presence... It was disquieting.

As Potter closed in on... Himself apparently, at a fairly rapid pace that Reborn well knew the man could easily outstrip, he spared a look at the small spat between Varia member Squalo and Dame-Tsuna and his Gaurdians-to-be. They were getting thrashed as Reborn had known they would.

* * *

Harry stopped atop a fairly small business building- too small to be accurately called a skyscraper, too dead and impersonal looking to be just about anything else- he surveyed the cratered mess that had been the shopping district of this town's center. Looked like a few mortar shells had been dropped here. Oh, and there was that jackass Squalo who called everyone trash. He wanted a piece of that action, that guy ticked him off almost as bad as... Well, damn near everything back in fifth year.

"Oi, shark-bait!" He called as he hopped off the building and walked calmly towards the, admittedly, aptly named swordsman. He was very shark-like. It seemed to be a running trend with those who joined the mafia. Seeing as his name was a derivative of a derivative of the name Hereweald* which was a combination of words that meant 'army' and 'to wield power' and he'd come in to an utterly enormous amount of power when he'd became the Master of Death and used the accumulated energy of the deaths of both sides of a goddamn war to do so, Harry felt he fit his name inordinately well. "Stop playing with the flounders and try me on for size!" He called as he drew his sword from a pocket.

Squalo looked up with a toothy, feral grin and and a malicious gleam in his eyes. "Vooii! And here I thought that you weren't part of any Famiglia, eh Black Whisper?" He sounded excited, and he'd used that stupid epitaph that had been stuck to him. "And you have a blade too! I'll gladly absorb your style!" The proud shark cried as he charged in with an overhead strike. Harry parried the attack and frowned when he caught notice of the projectiles disguised along the blade.

"Style?" Harry asked in a fake mild tone as he gave a goodly amount of attention to the fight as he and Squalo traded attacks back and forth, Squalo often blocking and thus wasting energy, while Harry always parried or dodged as minutely as possible. "I don't have something so restrictive and confining as a style. I have a set of personal truisms as applies to combat that I have adapted to both armed and unarmed combat," He ducked under a slash at his head weaved threw a number of thrusts. "And a number of well practiced techniques learned from various styles used to enhance the basics of swordsmanship as I define them for myself."

He parried Squalo's next attack and trapped Squalo's sword on the ground before raising a brow. "Sadly, even with your penchant for 'absorbing', take note of the sarcasm here, other styles of swordsmanship, you still have a pattern of doing things and a set reaction to certain types of attacks in your defensive maneuvers." He continued, though not quite as lightly as Squalo grew more and more angered, and thus fought more fiercely against Harry's trapping of his sword... And by proxy his arm.

"VOOOII! Do you think you're better than me, then?! I'll rip you apart!" He bit out viciously.

Harry gave a snort, and let Squalo up. "Hardly. I'm just here to deliver a message from Kyuudaime as a privately contracted mission. For Reborn over there." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to Reborn, sitting by a brunet kid's side. Likely the Juudaime candidate, though he looked scrawny and ill-suited to it. Like Neville would have been when he was the boys age.

Squalo stilled and turned to look at Reborn who had his green CZ-75 SP-01 Tactical/pet chameleon pointed at him. If nothing else, Harry applauded Reborn's taste in firearms, as he was partial to the CZ-75 SP-01 Tactical as well, when he used firearms. Two in his coat after all, with extended magazines, suppressors and beefed up iron sights.

Squalo stood down and turned with a slight huff, before revealing to Harry some sort of box that he was apparently supposed to care about. "If it's what I think it is, then good on you, trash. Xanxus would applaud your quick delivery, if he cared about trash like you at all." He walked away with the air of one who had had his candy stolen.

Harry sighed a bit before he turned to Reborn. "Hey." He greeted fairly casually, getting a 'ciaossu' in return. "Old man Nono's message." He tossed the small folio that contained the message to Reborn and turned to leave.

He stopped a second later as Reborn called out to him. "Could you not leave just yet, Potter? I'd appreciate a touch of help getting these brat's to someplace safe...er." He requested in a way that, while not exactly polite as far a Japanese went, wasn't outright insulting either, as seemed to be the norm when Reborn addressed him.

"Er, yeah. Sure I'll carry a couple of them." Harry replied as he turned to walk back. The folio was slightly open in Reborn's hand and Harry caught sight of the words 'do not let' before it snapped closed completely.

* * *

On the way back to the brunet's- Sawada Tsunayoshi as he'd learned- house from dropping the other kids off at a clinic with the Dino the Bucking Bronco- who'd shown up after the fact- and Reborn revealing the Vongola Rings to Tsuna, who promptly ran off, Harry tried to get a discreet look at the contents of the folio Reborn was speed-reading through- with no success. Reborn wasn't called the strongest hitman in the world for nothing, it seemed.

Upon arriving at the house, Harry noticed a large amount of laundry hanging on the lines at the front of the house. Turning to Reborn and leveling a somewhat annoyed look, Harry kicked off the coming conversation with an annoyed tone. "All right Reborn, just what is it you're not telling me? I know someone of your caliber would have sensed me the second I showed up, and my sudden arrival would have told you that I can essentially teleport, so your excuse of giving me a place to stay while I make travel arrangements is bogus." He leaned back against the garden wall. "What is it about this job that Kyuudaime didn't tell me?"

Reborn gazed back at him in an appraising manner and nodded once before answering. "Kyuudaime has decided that he'd like for you to be the Lightning guardian for Vongola Juudaime." Harry would have protested, but Reborn cut him off. "It doesn't have to be permanent, bosses have been known to switch out guardians if one doesn't feel capable of carrying out their duty, like the Rokudaime who's first Mist guardian retired due to age. But if you don't do this then our only other option for a Lightning guardian is a five year Bovino whose Elettrico Cuoio isn't well developed."

At the mention of the Bovino, Harry gave Reborn a venomous look. "As much as bringing them up's a low blow, even for a mafioso, I can't in good conscience allow a child to fight... Well, I would assume someone from the Varia's elites if Squalo's involved on the other side." He sighed and- with an air of grudging acceptance- held out his right hand. "You've got yourself a Lightning guardian, for now. Once the kid's out of danger I'm gone." Reborn smirked.

End~

* * *

Alright, new story. Want me to continue? Anyway those two powers I mentioned? His flames and the ability to augment his body with magic. The third will come into play during... Probably the Future arc. Slightly shorter chapter because it wanted to end here.

* I actually did do the research on the name, and this was after I'd already written out the whole mass death=Harry is immortal bit. It's weird.

Anyway, till next time! Kuta out!


End file.
